School, Education, Homeschooling and Nevada

Frank Schnorbus Nevada Homeschool Network, Chair March 25, 2010 1 Ecclesiastes 1:9 – 11 What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our me. There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow.

Proverbs 4:1 – 5

Listen, my sons, to a father’s instruction; pay attention and gain understanding.

I give you sound learning, so do not forsake my teaching.

When I was a boy in my father’s house, still tender, and an only child of my mother,

he taught me and said, Lay hold of my words with all your heart; keep my commands and you will live.

Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forget my words or swerve from them. 2 Pinky: “Gee, Brain, what do you want to do tonight?”

The Brain: “The same thing we do every night, Pinky – try to take over the world!”

ARE YOU PONDERING WHAT I’M PONDERING? Why do YOU educate your child? Who knows your child best? Where do parental rights fit in? Why can’t homeschoolers be le alone? What does the word “educate” mean to you? Whose business is your child’s educaon? Why should educang a child take a “professional”? What is the difference between educaon and school? Why wouldn’t “professionals” appreciate homeschooling? What is the state’s interest in seeing that children are educated? When will homeschooling be “safe” from restricve laws? Why do homeschoolers do beer than other types of schools? What does the word “beer” mean? Would it maer if homeschoolers didn’t do beer? What about parents who don’t educate their children? What did previous American generaons do? Wasn’t school always the way it is today? Who is ulmately responsible for your child’s educaon? Will educaon as we know it today ever change? Why is it important for homeschoolers to be vigilant? 3 (Courtesy of Dr. Brian Ray, NHERI)

School: A place or Educaon: The bringing organizaon up and instrucon of outside the home children and youth to where teachers enlighten their instruct, teach, or understanding, insll their drill students in philosophy, develop their specific knowledge morals, form their or skills such as manners, correct their reading, language, tempers, give them mathemacs, and knowledge and train their arts and, allegedly, skills such as in reading, only secondarily in language, mathemacs, and manners, arts, and fit them for philosophy, and usefulness in their families, morals. associaons, and communies. Educaon comprehends all that series Homeschool cric of instrucon and discipline Christopher Lubienski, which is intended to Assistant Professor accomplish the Iowa State University aforemenoned.

Recent structural reforms of educaon highlight an emerging recognion of the difference between `public educaon' and `public schools.' (2003)

Crical observers of homeschooling argue that those who pracce this form of educaon are giving up on solving common problems and that social straficaon is a consequence of their acons (Apple, 2000; Lubienski, 2000). Underlying these concerns are commitments to the common school, including shared goals and strengthening community. -Rebecca Jaycox, 2001, ERIC Digest (Educaon Resources Informaon 4 Center, US Dept of Educaon) Let’s look at some roots of today’s educational system

In America, pre Columbus, the family structure in most Nave American tribes was subordinate to the community as a whole. Characteriscs of family life: * Frequent divorce * Adopon of captured enemies into families * Communal responsibility for discipline of children * Discipline by praise & shame, not corporal punishment * Informal sharing and reciprocity * Boys learned fishing and hunng * Girls learned sewing and farming

In Europe, pre Columbus, there were relavely few opons for basic schooling. * Parish schools to train boys to be future priests * Private tutors at home * Lan schools for university study, clerical or legal career * Girls taught by tutors or nuns in a nearby convent

King’s School, Canterbury Established 597

5 Prussia (Protestant, part of current day Germany) and Austria (Catholic) were the centers of social and educaonal reform in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. Forces changing educaon in Europe in the early 1500s

Prinng Press

Commerce and Trade

Reformaon Marn Luther considered popular educaon to be crucial to the success of the Reformaon. “When schools flourish, all flourishes.”

6 In Germany, Protestant town councils transformed ulitarian schools into centers of religious indoctrinaon.

Catholic princes followed suit, shocked by the rapid spread of Protestansm.

Schooling, however, did not equal literacy. Literacy rates in the mid 1700s were less than 10% in many places. WHY? Protestant leaders feared the spread of sectarianism, so lay Bible reading was restricted and controlled.

Catholic leaders feared the spread of Protestansm, so Bible truths needed mediaon by church hierarchy.

Because schools, above all, provided instrucon in the arcles of faith, both Protestants and Catholics relied on oral recitaon, memorizaon of catechisms, and music.

Girl playing lute 1626

Jamestown was founded in 1607 by entrepreneurs from Virginia Company of London, aer sailing across on three ships, the Susan Constant, Discovery, and Godspeed. 7 Parental Response Winkelschulen (the “backstreet” or “corner” school) Literacy was acquired not because of parish and community schools, but in spite of them. Winkelschulen characteriscs: * Not franchised by either church or municipal authories * Strictly ulitarian – 3Rs * Subordinated religious instrucon to impartaon of literacy * More cost effecve * Narrow curricular focus * Were close to home * Educaon for girls * Viewed as threatening source of compeon * Church distrusted neglect of religious instrucon * Somemes served as havens for crypto-Protestansm * Served poorer families, allowed children in families to work * Usually quite small (typically 4 or 5 families) with a tutor * Occasionally a school drew more pupils than its franchised neighbors * Evidence they served more pupils in total than franchised schools * Belonged to the “educaonal underground” * Led shadowy and elusive existences * Were outlawed in most communies * Were wildly popular * Served an unmet need * Were silently tolerated 8 Religious tensions, internal polics and the balance of power finally exploded into a world war known as the 30 Years’ War from 1618 to 1648, one of the most destrucve conflicts in European history. Interest in popular schooling waned significantly. Extensive areas of Germany lay ravaged by war. Orphans, widows, and vagabonds roamed its cies and towns.

Devout Lutherans like Duke Ernst the Pious aributed the war to divine punishment for spiritual disobedience and corrupon. In 1620, near the beginning of the 30 Years War, a group of English immigrants le Holland on the Mayflower to escape religious persecuon.

In 1636 the colonial Massachuses legislature founded Harvard University, and in 1647 passed the “Old Deluder Satan” school law. 9 Piesm Reformaon within a Reformaon It is difficult to overesmate Piesm’s impact; Piesm, with humble beginnings in 1670, proved to be the most powerful force behind the movement for compulsory schooling in 18th century Europe. Prussia later served as an example to governments around the world on how to establish and run compulsory educaonal systems.

Influences on Spener:

The Pracce of Piety By Lewis Bayley Wrien in 1611

Direcng a Chrisan How to Walk, that He May Please God

Jean de Labadie 1610 – 1674 French ex-Jesuit Philipp Jacob Spener 1635 - 1705 turned fiery Calvinist minister

William Penn paid a visit to Spener and his group in 1674. 10 Characteriscs of Piesm: * True Chrisans fulfill their obligaons voluntarily through convicon, not mechanically through coercion * Generally condemned sensual display; dancing, the stage, opera, fesvals * Social acvists – faith verified through acon * Even doing his best works, man is sinful to his very core * Grace available to all through repentance and conversion * Obligaon to help others seek salvaon for themselves * Accepted the hierarchical social order as divinely ordained, including ones own posion in society through an acceptance of God’s grace and a trust in providence; social inequality is both necessary and proper * Religious toleraon * A genuine knowledge of Christ can only be obtained by reading Scriptures; the laity must be able to read the Bible

August Hermann Francke A Piest and Lutheran pastor, Francke became (1663 – 1727) convinced that educaon was the only andote to society’s moral depravity. His school, founded in 1695 in Halle, soon gained a reputaon for piety and orderliness.

Halle, Prussia (Germany)

“We are not to be sasfied if the child exhibits an outer show of piety but at heart remains unchanged…. The purely external, no maer how fair its appearance, cannot stand before the omniscient eye of God without the power of Christ in one’s heart.” August Hermann Francke 11 Under August Francke’s leadership and influence several teacher training instutes, and hundreds of schools, were founded.

Francke’s schools:  Outward obedience to authority, like outward piety, was insufficient  A strong work ethic  Hourglasses in every classroom  Even “free” recess me was scheduled  Pupils exhorted to work “not out of coercion, but a love of God.”  Discipline comparavely mild for its day; “be a father, not a disciplinarian”  A child’s natural will must first be broken and made obedient to be compliant  Conversion the primary aim of schooling  The child’s will was to be broken by intensifying instuonal control - compulsory aendance - roll call - uninterrupted vigilance over the child’s acvies - in his boarding schools all outside influences, including parental contact, was discouraged

Johann Julius Hecker (1707 – 1768) Hecker connued the Piest legacy of Francke, with several innovaons.

First done by the French priest Jean-Bapste de la Salle in the late 1600s, Hecker began collecve (group) teaching in the classroom, instead of individually, grouping students according to ability. Raising your hand to ask a queson began here.

Hecker started vocaonal schools, an alternave to the long established apprenceship system of the guilds, which had become exclusive and corrupt. 12 Francke, Hecker and other Piest reformers believed it was necessary to educate all individuals to serve God, their rulers, and society. They pushed to establish a system of popular schools, not under established religious authories who resisted change, but under the secular authority who also saw school as an instrument of societal control.

CAMERALISM Predecessor of modern public administration Mastering the Masterless

“The peasant, who always performs such obligaons unwillingly and with resentment, works as lile as possible and then only perfunctorily and lethargically. The estate manager must stand over him with a whip, something a well- ordered state cannot allow.” Cameralist Johann Heinrich Golob Jus (1717 – 1771)

The key to a producve and disciplined worker, working within his posion in the social order, was the educaon of the young who needed to be taught “sufficiently early”. Officials and manufacturers saw child labor as a societal benefit, prevenng them from becoming beggars on the street, and inslling a work ethic that would later benefit all of society. To use a modern phrase, the “outcome based educaon” produced by Piest schools fit perfectly with their goals.

Woodrow Wilson, US President from 1913 to 1921, wrote in 1887 admiringly of Germany’s experience with cameralism. 13 Characteriscs of Cameralism: Service to society is an exchange for the state’s provision of protecon, domesc order, and procurement of prosperity. * Autonomy of the individual is abhorred. All cizens must contribute to society. * Educaon is a responsibility of the state to ensure producve cizens. * Educaon is a parental duty, but because of its importance to the common good, can not be le solely in the hands of the family. * Maintained that the state has the right to remove children from families if necessary to place them in state controlled educaonal instuons. * Insisted that educaon must be compable with a pupil’s posion in society, arguing that educaon must insll a capacity for manual labor, docility in conduct, and acceptance of social posion. Different castes get different levels of educaon, no maer what the individual’s ability is. * Over-educaon causes labor shortages: those students are unfit for manual labor. * Access to higher educaon must be limited. * Believed that social order was maintained by balance; in diplomacy it was balance of power, in commerce it was balance of trade, in educaon it was staying in your caste to prevent intellectual social imbalance. * Had a major concern about the provision of adequate revenues to the government. * The key to taxes is the regulaon of producon and trade, including proteconism to keep items that are produced at home from being imported. * Unlike mercanlism that aims to consolidate precious metals for the naon’s wealth; cameralism aims to consolidate and strengthen polical and administrave power. * Power thus accumulated is not to be used to advance the selfish interests of those in power, but enables them to promote the welfare of their subjects. * The ulmate purpose of the state, which is a multude of people under a supreme power, is the people’s happiness. Collecve, not individual, happiness. * Individuals subordinate their interests to the interests of the community. * Each person idenfies his own happiness with the happiness of the whole society. * Populaon must always increase to ensure the military power to defend the country. * Society must be kept healthy: abundant food supply and employment, immigraon of rich and talented people, diminishment of sickness and drunkenness and other demoralizing vices, medical care, and cleanliness of the cies. * “Knowledge” of the populaon is indispensable. There must be internal security milias, and vagabonds must be driven from the country. * Homes must report the names and circumstances of people who lodge with them. * There is great faith in the power of science to assist state administrators. * Public administrators must be university trained. University faculty must be balanced to the needs of the state. 14 Education Becomes Law 1717 & 1736 – Principia Regulava

Frederick William I 1688 - 1740 In 1717 Frederick William I of Prussia signed the Principia Regulava, the first European edict requiring all children to aend school. But it only applied where schools existed, didn’t contain sufficient financing, and was never enforced. The decree in 1736 used state funds for the first me to build schools and pay teachers. 1763 - General-Landschul-Reglemen In 1763 Frederick William I’s son, Frederick II (Frederick the Great) signed the General-Landschul- Reglemen (General Educaon Regulaons) that were draed by Johann Julius Hecker. It was followed in 1765 by another to complete the reform. Winkelschulen, of course, were forbidden. These were sweeping and historic decrees, requiring school aendance by all children in the kingdom. Frederick II 1712 – 1786 1774 - Allgemeine Schulordnung

In 1774 Maria Theresa of Austria signed the Allgemeine Schulordnung (General School Ordinance) draed by Johann Ignaz Felbiger, a Hecker protégé. Also sweeping, it was beer financed than the Prussian laws since Maria Theresa was the beneficiary of the dissoluon of the Jesuits by Pope Maria Theresa 1717 - 1780 Clement XIV in 1773. 15 Historical Significance and Reflecons Upon Educaonal Reform in Prussia and Austria

In 1842 William Howi, aer a sojourn to Germany, wrote in his book The Rural and Domesc Life of Germany, “As George III wished that every man in his dominions might never want a Sunday's dinner and a Bible to read aer it, so the Germans have wished that every man, woman, and child, should have an educaon; and they have not only wished it, but decreed it. This glorious advance in the true science of government has raised no lile sensaon throughout Europe…”

John Quincy Adams, US President from 1825 to 1829, wrote in 1804 that Prussian schools aimed “not merely to load the memory of their scholars with words, but to make things intelligible to their understanding.”

John Q. Adams 1767 - 1848

Horace Mann, the “father of American public educaon”, contrasted Prussian schools where children were “taught to think for themselves” with Massachuses schools where “the child was taught NOT TO THINK.” Horace Mann 1796 - 1859 16 But was Prussian educaonal reform really that great?

Historian Kenneth Barkin and many others have noted that there is compelling evidence that 18th century school reform was not an effecve or reliable mechanism of social control. Furthermore, many historians have argued those school reforms are the roots of Naonal Socialism of Nazi Germany, where cizens were taught strict obedience to the state.

Noted historian Ellwood P. Cubberley, in 1920, said, “The uniform system of public schools ordered established for Prussia by Frederick the Great, in 1763, were aer all lile more than religious schools conducted for purposes of both Church and State.”

Johann Ignaz Felbiger, author of Austria’s 1774 decree, bierly observed, “Opposion to this undertaking has been general: Catholics and Protestants, priests and laity, rich and poor, have all worked to undermine it.”

Three forces combined, for different reasons, to reform educaon. Parents, the Church, and the State. In this case, the State predominated.

At the conclusion of his seminal award winning 1988 book Absolusm and the eighteenth-century origins of compulsory schooling in Prussia and Austria, James Van Horn Melton noted, “Far from creang a stable social and polical order, however, the absolust policies examined here merely contributed to the disorder they sought to prevent,” and undermined the social balance they sought to preserve.

Who do my What is the real children belong to? purpose of education?

“Enlightened” crics considered the Piest methods too authoritarian and mechanical, preferring the more “progressive” ideas of Jean Jacques Rousseau.

17 Enlightenment Nothing is required for this enlightenment, however, except freedom; and the freedom in queson is the least harmful of all, namely, the freedom to use reason publicly in all maers. But on all sides I hear: "Do not argue!" The officer says, "Do not argue, drill!" The tax man says, "Do not argue, pay!" The pastor says, "Do not argue, believe! German philosopher Immanuel Kant, 1784

Immanuel Kant 1724 - 1804

“It may strain the imaginaon to regard one man, a slightly demented philosopher of the eighteenth century, as the inventor of childhood, the inspiraon for the founders of progressive educaon, the starng point for the Romanc movement, an early collecvist, the intelligent force behind the French revoluon, and the founder of naonalism, but Rousseau cannot be denied any of those posions.” Mary Novello in For All the Wrong Reasons – The Story Behind Government Schools Jean Jacques Rousseau 1712 - 1778

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1770 – 1831

John Dewey 1859 - 1952

Karl Marx 1818 – 1883 18 Some of Rousseau’s ideas on child rearing  The child by nature is good, and entled to freedom and happiness  Don’t caress a child when he’s hurt; that teaches that suffering brings rewards  Politeness is manipulaon  When old enough to stop nursing, withdraw the child as totally as possible from parents and relaves.  Don’t teach a child history when he is young, but teach to his inquisive nature  When 16, teach him history and sex educaon  When 18, teach him religion  “Our first instructors in philosophy are our feet, hands, and eyes. Substung books for all this is not teaching us to reason, but teaching us to use the reasoning of others.” Rousseau, 1762 Emile is perhaps the most influenal book ever wrien on educaon, though Rousseau claimed it was only his personal views. Progressive and child-centered educaonal pracces find their roots back to Rousseau’s Emile. “The only true educaon comes through the smulaon of the child’s powers, by the demands of the social situaons in which he finds himself.” (Dewey, 1916)

Using ideas from Rousseau, Froebel invented kindergarten, where children encounter things, not books.

Friedrich Wilhelm Froebel 1782 – 1852 19 Progressive Education

Progressive Educaon Associaon From 1919 to 1955 the Progressive Educaon Associaon worked to promote a more student- centered approach to educaon.

Progressive educaon is the freedom to develop naturally. The conduct of the pupil should be governed by himself according to the social needs of his community, rather than by arbitrary laws. (Beckner & Dumas, 1924)

John Dewey is considered the “father of progressive, child centered educaon” in America.

Open classrooms, schools without walls, cooperave learning, mulage approaches, whole language, the social curriculum, experienal educaon, and numerous forms of alternave schools all have important philosophical roots in progressive educaon. hp://www.uvm.edu/~dewey/arcles/proged.html

Pestalozzi, a Swiss educaonal reformer, was the first to apply Rousseau’s methods, but is known primarily for his wrings and his teacher training instuon.

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi 20 1746 – 1827 Rousseau agreed with Francke in that the child has a will that must be contended with. But here's the difference: Francke believed that the will can be broken, wearing it down by physically liming opons and appealing to the inner conscience. Rousseau believed that the tutor has the ability to present opons that the tutor knows are acceptable to both the tutor and the child, so the child makes a choice from these mutually acceptable opons without ever knowing that other opons exist. When the child has matured he will make the right decisions based on his past posive experience.

“Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.” With this statement, Rousseau means the chains of social control, and then he proposes to exchange the chains of the marketplace, which are based on compeon and are therefore immoral, with the chains of state control, which are legimate because they are in the public interest and therefore are morally jusfied. All social order must be under the control of the state. State educaon is needed to convince cizens that this is true freedom.

As Mary Novello points out in her book, For All the Wrong Reasons, the Story Behind Government Schools, in Russia and China “…the populace was granted the unfeered freedom of becoming totally subservient to the state.” 21 In 1989 the US Department of Educaon commissioned Charles L. Glenn to do a study on Eastern Europe’s school systems. Publicaon of the study, Educaonal Freedom in Eastern Europe, was cancelled by Department bureaucrats, aer seeing this in his Foreword:

The experience of Soviet educaon since 1917, and of educaon in Eastern Europe from the post-war years to 1989, illustrates the danger of seeking to use schooling as an instrument of State power, in an effort to remold humanity and to eliminate loyales and beliefs compeng with those considered useful by the State. Unfortunately, this ambion is not unknown in the United States and other Western democracies, where interest groups within the educaonal establishment and special interest groups have sought to manipulate the content of public schooling to advance their agendas.

In more recent research Glenn has found: In fact, today in Russia, Poland, and other East European countries, parents have more freedom to choose the schools their children aend than do American parents. Not only can they freely choose nongovernment schools; they can also work with others to create new independent schools. hp://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/pr-so-sc.html

22 Quotes on Educaon

“[T]he inadequacies of our systems of research and educaon pose a greater threat to U.S. naonal security over the next quarter century than any potenal convenonal war that we might imagine.” — Hart-Rudman Commission on Naonal Security, Road Map for Naonal Security: Imperave for Change, 2001. hp://www.aau.edu/reports/NDEII.pdf

“Educaon is the cheap defense of naons.” Edmund Burke (1729 – 1797)

"Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.” Also, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force.” George Washington (1732 – 1799)

”…that religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of educaon shall be forever encouraged." Congress of the Confederaon (our Congress from 1781 to 1789, before the Constuon) Ordinance of 1787 23 Excerpts from an email by Nevada homeschooler and former public school teacher Carol Williams, Nov 23, 2009 We're not just talking about a lile bit of bureaucracy we'd have to endure, there's an enre ideology that comes with so called "public educaon" that is diametrically opposed to most homeschoolers'. They absolutely do not believe that parents are their child's best teacher or guide. They most certainly believe kids should be standardized. They only put up with homeschooling because they have to...given the chance, they would love to regulate it...

I'm actually for public educaon but that's not what our schools offer, if they did they would look more like libraries and community centers where anyone could sign up for anything based on their own interest and need. If we could repeal compulsory aendance laws, now that would be something to celebrate!...

We are sll pioneers even though so many have come before us, and that takes courage and dedicaon, not surrender, supplicaon or even a sense of entlement. We chose this journey because it is the best and right thing to do for us, not because of some possible monetary credit/relief from the state.

That erroneous assumpon is to the effect that the aim of public educaon is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the dues of cizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public educaon is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized cizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of policians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else. If any contrary theory is cherished among us it is simply because H. L. Mencken public schools are sll relavely new in America, and so their 1880 – 1956 true character and purpose are but lile understood. American journalist Excerpt from The Library, by H. L. Mencken in 1924 24 Having considered these philosophical underpinnings, let's go back...

While in Holland, before seng sail on the Mayflower and landing at Plymouth Rock in 1620, the Pilgrims taught their children at home. It wasn’t unl the 1670s that Plymouth Colony had a school, which lasted only a few years before dissolving. Educaon was in the home.

Later, in 1629 and for the next decade, about 21,000 Puritans arrived a lile north of Plymouth in the Boston area and founded the Massachuses Bay Colony. John Winthrop arrived in 1630 with a group of 11 ships known as the Winthrop Fleet.

In 1647 the colony enacted the “Old Deluder Satan Law”, the 2nd of 3 educaonal laws. Even though it was a Chrisan government, the law’s provisions direcng the Massachuses Bay Colony towns to have teachers and schools are regarded as the first step toward compulsory, government directed, public educaon in the United States. The law was widely 25 disregarded. It wasn’t unl the mid 1800s, though, that educaonal reformers began pushing for laws requiring all children in each state to go to school.

Most states already had a system of “common schools”, which were publicly funded schools, but children were not required to aend them, or any other school for that maer. Raising the same arguments used in the 1600s, reformers led by Horace Mann began to convince legislatures to compel children to go to school.

One requirement imposed on Southern states before they could rejoin the Union aer the Civil War was that school Nevada, which joined the Union in provision laws had to be on 1864 during the Civil War, has in the books. its Constuon, “The legislature shall provide for a uniform system of common schools … …and the Legislature may pass such laws as will tend to secure a general aendance of the children in each school district upon said public schools.”

From 1864 unl 1873, when a compulsory law was passed, Nevada had common schools, but no law requiring aendance. 26 Virginia City’s famous Fourth Ward School opened in 1876, three years aer Nevada’s compulsory educaon law went into effect. Students aended the Storey County school unl 1936. It is now a museum.

By 1918, all states had passed a law requiring all children within the state to aend school. Private schools existed, but many states were seeking to regulate them all the way out of business. Oregon finally passed a law outlawing them altogether, and the case went to the US Supreme Court.

In Pierce, the High Court resoundingly affirmed the right of parents to direct the educaon of their children, but it also affirmed that each state has an interest in the educaon of children. All subsequent court cases have been efforts to balance the interests of the state against the interests of the parents.

27 In 1943, in her book The God of the Machine, Isabel Paterson warned that private and home schools could eventually be at risk: “A tax-supported, compulsory educaonal system is the complete model of a totalitarian state. “The extent of the power exercised, and its final implicaons are not yet recognized in the United States, because parents are allowed to send their children to private schools, or to educate them at home – although they must sll pay the school tax. But when that permission is granted, and the educaonal standard is prescribed, it is revocable; it is no longer a right, but a permission.” (p. 272)

Nevada Homeschool Laws 1947: That the child is receiving under private or public instrucon, at home or in some other school, equivalent instrucon fully approved by the state board of educaon as to the kind and amount thereof;

1956: Aendance required by the provisions of secon 363 shall be excused when sasfactory wrien evidence is presented to the board of trustees of the school district in which the child resides that the child is receiving at home or in some other school equivalent instrucon of the kind and amount approved by the state board of educaon.

2007 (before the new homeschool law): Aendance required by the provisions of NRS 392.040 must be excused when sasfactory wrien evidence is presented to the board of trustees of the school district in which the child resides that the child is receiving at home or in some other school equivalent instrucon of the kind and amount approved by the State Board.

Present: Aendance of a child required by the provisions of NRS 392.040 must be excused when: (b) A parent of the child chooses to provide educaon to the child and files a noce of intent to homeschool the child with the superintendent of schools of the school district in which the child resides in accordance with NRS 392.700. 28 1982 - 83 Dave & Pat Wallace Winnemucca, NV

29 Nevada’s new homeschool law, sponsored by Assemblywoman Sharron Angle and passed in 2007, specifies that homeschoolers “nofy” the government (the local school district superintendent) that they are homeschooling; homeschoolers don’t use an applicaon that could be turned down.

Sharron Angle

But the Nevada legislature could change that at any me; our law could go back to what it was, or worse. It's unlikely it would happen all at once. It's more likely our freedom would erode away slowly as bureaucrats change an occasional word, or change the educaonal landscape to exclude and discriminate against homeschooled children.

It's also possible that a Federal law or a Supreme Court decision could impinge on our parental right to homeschool. Antonin Scalia, one of the most conservave Jusces on the Supreme Court, has commented that because the Constuon doesn't address parental rights they are not enforceable.

The UNCRC (United Naons Convenon on the Rights of the Child) poses an immediate and significant threat to parental rights. To read and learn more, to get involved or to donate, go to www.ParentalRights.org

The Parental Rights Amendment (PRA), an Amendment to the U.S. Constuon, is needed to protect against the courts and the UN. So far 6 Senators and 130 Representaves have co-signed the PRA. The last amendment, the 27th, was passed in 1992.

VIGILANCE 30 Today in the United States there is a considerable amount of research, many favorable state laws, a number of court cases, and some new social and economic theories that freedom loving parents didn’t have in the 75 years between 1850 and 1925 when compulsory educaon laws came onto the books.

In 1965 liberal economist E.G. West wrote Educaon and the State, a book that reexamined the data used by educaonal reformers in England, the U.S. and elsewhere to jusfy compulsory educaon. Using Public Choice Theory (which he called The Economics of Bureaucracy), he rocked the educaonal establishment with his findings. So much so that one angry professor called it “Copernican in reverse.”

West posits that government has three ways to be involved in educaon: funding it, regulang it, providing it. He examines all three, and quesons as an economist why government is doing any of them.

“So, for example, if a parent wishes to remove his or her child from school, this does not necessarily signify negligence but could mean that the parent acknowledges that the ‘school has become less efficient than other means of Edwin George West educaon’, and the parent may in fact ‘be 1922 - 2001 acng from moves of protecon’ by removing his or her child.” E.G. West In 2008 James Tooley wrote a book that condenses all of West’s many books and papers, called E.G. West: Economic Liberalism and the Role of Government in Educaon. Reviewers highly recommend this volume as the best way to review West. 31 Nevada’s Legislature meets on odd numbered years, plus whenever there’s a special session.

Nevada Legislave Building in Carson City

Homeschoolers have had acve homeschool bills at the Legislature on numerous occasions, specifically in 1983, 1985, 1991, 1999, 2003, 2005, and 2007.

Starng in 1990, and ending in 2007 with the new homeschool law, homeschoolers had advisory councils (one in Carson City, one in Las Vegas) to assist the State Board of Educaon with homeschool regulaons. Acvity at these Advisory meengs and State Board meengs was connual.

Thank you to all who have come in person to the meengs, called or mailed or emailed their

representaves! It DOES make a HUGE difference! 32 References used in this presentaon:

Absolusm and the eighteenth-century origins of compulsory schooling in Prussia and Austria, by James Van Horn Melton, 1988, isbn 0-521-34668-1

The Dissenng Tradion in American Educaon, by James C. Carper & Thomas C. Hunt, 2007, isbn 978-0-8204-7920-0

For All the Wrong Reasons, The Story Behind Government Schools, by Mary K. Novello, 1998, isbn 0-7618-1190-7 (paperback, but good quality), or isbn 0-7618-1189-3 (cloth)

E.G. West - Economic Liberalism and the Role of Government in Educaon, by James Tooley, 2008, isbn-13: 978-0-8264-8413-0

Homeschool, An American History, by Milton Gaither, 2008, isbn-13: 978-0-230-60599-2 (hardback) or isbn-13: 978-0-230-60600-5 (paperback) The “Economics of Compulsion” in The Twelve-year Sentence, Edited by William Rickenbacker, 1974, by Edwin G. West Available for free online at hp://research.ncl.ac.uk/egwest/test/egwest/pdf/pdfs/economics%20of %20compulsion.pdf

“Cameralist thought and public administraon”, by Michael W. Spicer Source: Journal of Management History, Vol 4, No 3 (1998), pp 149-159

“Whose House of Learning? Some Thoughts on German Schools in Post- Reformaon Germany”, by Christopher R. Friedrichs Source: History of Educaon Quarterly, Vol 22, No 3 (Autumn, 1982), pp 371-377 JSTOR 367775

Compulsory Educaon Laws: The Dialogue Reopens, The Home School Court Report, Sept/Oct 2000, Vol XVI, Number 5, Home School Legal Defense Associaon

The Rural and Domesc Life of Germany, by William Howi, publ 1842, available online for free at hp://books.google.com/

Barnard’s American Journal of Educaon, Internaonal Series, Volume Three, by Henry Barnard, LL.D., 1878 available online for free at hp://books.google.com/ 33